Digitising the Prosopography of the Roman Republic

罗马共和国（公元前509年至公元前31年）的历史是由一群极具竞争力的贵族精英塑造的，他们见证了罗马从意大利中等城邦到地中海帝国统治者的非凡转变。该项目旨在通过对其认证个体的外形研究，包括其家庭组成、办公室持有模式、内部等级制度以及财产和财富，加强我们对这一精英阶层的结构和动态的理解。这些问题的重要性早已被认识到，许多关于罗马精英人物传记的基本信息已经在学术著作中得到整理。然而，由于资料的规模和复杂性（布劳顿的指数列出了3299个人），以前无法对其进行综合分析，而综合分析的因素包括个人“职业”模式、家庭连续性、跨家族联系以及与在职群体以外的精英家庭的关系。现在的数字技术，借鉴了KCL数字人文系在这一领域的经验、天赋和成功，使我们能够创建一个开放访问的可搜索的数字数据库，其中包括所有已知的共和党精英成员，这将为重新审视旧问题以及提出尚未考虑可行性的全新问题提供全新的机会。为了加快我们的工作速度，我们获得了DDH的许可和技术专长，通过布劳顿的半自动化数据输入来建立我们的数据库，然后根据需要对其进行检查、更新和扩展。这个项目有两个重要的新奇之处。首先，对罗马精英采用更全面的方法。虽然“贵族”，即政治职位的拥有者，自然吸引了大多数学者的注意，但要理解精英阶层不断变化的性质和运作方式，不仅要考虑元老院的较低阶层，还要考虑富裕的非元老院阶层，他们在共和国的最后一个世纪成为了骑士团，以及意大利不断增长的市政精英。这些群体在社会上紧密结合，该项目首次试图系统地绘制血缘、婚姻、起源、商业或友谊的联系，这些联系将他们联系在一起，以及他们之间发生的运动。其次，与之前大多数关于罗马共和国的人类学研究相反，该项目将把其研究结果置于统治集团社会学研究的更广泛背景下，并设想与威尼斯共和国进行直接比较，因为威尼斯共和国具有共同的基本特征。这个数据库将使我们能够研究的新旧问题包括：贵族的组成、作用和人数下降；地位的世袭程度，而不仅仅是职位的世袭；某些家庭群体在某些阶段明显占主导地位，相反，某些家庭在某些时期消失的原因；精英阶层财富的分配、变化水平和性质；对罗马家族传统和历史编年史传统的影响。然而，具有特殊历史影响的问题将是社会战争后意大利当地精英融入罗马精英的程度、地点和速度。尽管意大利出生的执政官直到奥古斯都时代才出现，但我们将认为，进入较低的元老院层次的速度更快，而且许多以前对传统共和制度没有投资的新家族对政治体系的渗透在破坏该体系的稳定方面发挥了重要作用。因此，我们的人类学研究将为共和国的衰落和元首制的建立提供一个至关重要的新视角。

The history of the Roman Republic (c. 509 to 31 BCE) was shaped by a highly competitive aristocratic elite, which oversaw Rome's remarkable transformation from middling Italian city-state to ruler of a Mediterranean empire. This project seeks to enhance our understanding of the structure and dynamics of this elite through prosopographical study of its attested individuals, including its familial composition, office-holding patterns, internal hierarchies and property and wealth. The importance of these questions has long been recognised and much basic information for the prosopography of the Roman elite has already been collated in scholarly works. However, because of the sheer scale and complexity of the material (Broughton's index lists 3,299 individuals), it has not previously been practicable to subject it to a comprehensive analysis that integrates multiple factors such as individual 'career' patterns, family continuity, cross-familial links, and connections with elite families outside the office-holding group. Now digital technology, drawing on the experience, flair and success in this area of the Department of Digital Humanities at KCL, enables us to create an open-access searchable digital database comprising all known members of the republican elite, which will open up radically new opportunities for revisiting old questions as well as asking entirely new ones that have not been considered on grounds of feasibility. To speed our work, we have permission, and the technical expertise from DDH, to build our database through a semi-automated inputting of the data in Broughton, which will then be checked, updated and expanded as required. There are two significant novelties to this project. First, the application of a more holistic approach to the Roman elite. Whereas the 'nobility', that is the holders of political office, have naturally attracted most scholarly attention, it is impossible to understand the constantly shifting nature and workings of the elite without taking into account not only the lower ranks of the senate but also the wealthy non-senators who, in the last century of the Republic, became the equestrian order, and the growing municipal elite of Italy. These groups were closely integrated socially, and for the first time the project seeks to map systematically the links of blood, marriage, origin, business or friendship, that bound them together and the movements that happened between them. Second, in contrast to most previous prosopographical work on the Roman Republic, the project will locate its findings in the wider context of sociological studies of ruling groups, and a direct comparison is envisaged with the Venetian republic with which it shared essential characteristics. The old and new issues which this database will enable us to examine include the composition, role and numerical decline of the patriciate; the extent to which status, rather than just office-holding, was hereditary; the reasons for phases of apparent dominance by particular family groups and, conversely, the disappearance of some families in some periods; the distribution and changing levels and nature of wealth among the elite; the influence on the Roman annalistic tradition of family traditions and histories. The issue with special historical impact, however, will be the extent, location and speed of integration of the local Italian elites into the elite of Rome after the Social War. Although Italian-born consuls did not appear until Augustan times, we will argue that entry to the lower senatorial levels was more rapid, and the infiltration of the political system by so many new families who had previously had no investment in the traditional republican system played a major role in destabilising that system. Our prosopographical study will thus provide a vital new perspective on the fall of the Republic and the establishment of the Principate.